Taltos Read online

  "Listen, we cannot answer each other's questions this way," he said. "But what I can tell you now is I am glad the female is dead. I am glad it's dead!" He shook his head, and placed his hand on the sloped back of the chair. He was looking off, hair falling down over his eyes, rather wild now, so that he looked especially gaunt and dramatic, and rather like a magician, perhaps. "So help me, God," he said. "I'm relieved, I'm relieved that you tell me in the same breath it was there and that it is no more."

  Michael nodded. "I think I'm beginning to see."

  "Do you?" asked Ash.

  "We can't share this earth, can we, the two tribes so apparently similar and so utterly unalike?"

  "No, we can't share it," Ash said, shaking his head with emphasis. "What race can live with any other? What religion with any other? War is worldwide; and the wars are tribal, no matter what men say they are! They are tribal, and they are wars of extermination, whether it be the Arabs against the Kurds, or the Turks and the Europeans, or the Russian fighting the Oriental. It's never going to stop. People dream that it will, but it can't, as long as there are people. But of course, if my kind came again, and if the humans of the earth were exterminated, well, then, my people could live in peace, but then, doesn't every tribe believe this of itself?"

  Michael shook his head. "It doesn't have to be strife," he said. "It is conceivable that all tribes stop fighting each other."

  "Conceivable, yes, but not possible."

  "One breed doesn't have to reign over another," insisted Michael. "One breed doesn't even have to know about the other."

  "You mean that we should live in secret?" Ash asked. "Do you know how quickly our population doubles itself and then triples and then quadruples? Do you know how strong we are? You can't know how it was, you have never seen the Taltos born knowing, you've never seen it grow to its full height in those first few minutes or hours or days or however long it takes; you've never seen it."

  "I've seen it," said Rowan. "I've seen it twice."

  "And what do you say? What would come of my wanting a female? Of grieving for your lost Emaleth and seeking to find a replacement for her? Of troubling your innocent Mona with the seed that might make the Taltos or might make her die?"

  "I can tell you this," said Rowan, taking a deep breath. "At the moment I shot Emaleth, at that moment there wasn't the slightest doubt in my mind that she was a threat to my breed, and that she had to die."

  Ash smiled; he nodded. "And you were right."

  They were all silent. Then Michael spoke.

  "You have our worst secret now," he said.

  "Yes, you have it," said Rowan softly.

  "And I wonder," said Michael, "if we have yours."

  "You will," said Ash. "We should sleep now, all of us. My eyes hurt me. And the corporation waits with a hundred small tasks which only I can perform. You sleep now, and in New York I'll tell you everything. And you will have all my secrets, from the worst to the least."

  Twenty-three

  "MONA, WAKE UP."

  She heard the swamp before she actually saw it. She heard the bullfrogs crying, and the night birds, and the sound of water all around her, murky, still, yet still moving somewhere, in a rusted pipe perhaps, or against the side of a skiff, she didn't know. They had stopped. This must be the landing.

  The dream had been the strangest yet. She had had to pass an examination, and she that passed would rule the world, so Mona had to answer every question. From every field the questions had come, on science, mathematics, history, the computer she so loved, the stocks and bonds, the meaning of life, and that had been the hardest part, because she'd felt so alive that she could not begin to justify it. You know, you just know that it is magnificent to be alive. Had she scored the perfect one hundred percent? Would she rule the world?

  "Wake up, Mona!" Mary Jane whispered.

  Mary Jane couldn't see that Mona's eyes were open. Mona was looking through the glass window at the swamp, at the ragged, tilting trees, sickly and strung with moss, at the vines snarled like ropes around the huge old cypresses. Out there in the light of the moon she could see patches of water through the covering of still duckweed, and the knees of the cypress trees, so many dangerous spikes sticking up all around the thick trunks of the old trees. And black things, little black things flying in the night. Could be roaches, but don't think about it!

  Her back ached. As she tried to sit forward, she felt heavy and achy all over, and wanting more milk. They'd stopped twice for milk, and she wanted more. They had cartons and cartons in the ice chest, best to get to the house. Then drink it.

  "Come on, honey, you get out and wait for me right here, and I'm going to hide this car where nobody's likely to see it."

  "Hide this car, this enormous car?"

  Mary Jane opened the door and helped her out, and then stood back, obviously horrified again looking at her, and trying not to show it. The light came from inside the car on Mary Jane's face.

  "Lord, Mona Mayfair, what if you die?"

  Mona grasped Mary Jane's wrist as she stood up, her feet squarely planted on the soft earth thick with dredged white shells, glowing beneath her. There went the pier, out into the dark.

  "Stop saying that, Mary Jane, but I'll give you some thing to think about, just in case it happens," said Mona. She tried to lift the sack of groceries from the floor, but she could not bend down that far.

  Mary Jane had just lighted the lantern. She turned around and the light went up into her eyes, making her ghastly. It shone on the weathered shack behind her and on the few feet of dilapidated pier, and on the tendrils of moss that hung down from the dead-looking branches right above her.

  God, there were so many flying things in the dark.

  "Mona Mayfair, your cheekbones are sticking right out of your face!" said Mary Jane. "I swear to God, I can see your teeth through the skin around your mouth."

  "Oh, stop it, you're being crazy. It's the light. You look like a ghost yourself." Whoa, she felt horrible. Weak, and full of aching. Even her feet ached.

  "And you wouldn't believe the color of your skin, my God, you look like somebody sunk in a bath of milk of magnesia."

  "I'm okay. I can't lift this stuff."

  "I'll get it, you rest there against that tree, that's the tree I told you about, the cypress tree, oldest one in these parts, you see this was the pond out here, the little pond???? You know??? Where the family would go rowing??? Here, take the lantern, the handle doesn't get hot."

  "It looks dangerous. In the western movies, they are always throwing a lantern like that into the barn where the hero has been trapped by the bad guys. It breaks and sets the barn on fire every time. I don't like it."

  "Well, nobody's going to do that out here," shouted Mary Jane over her shoulder, as she moved one sack after another, plunking them down on the shells. "And there isn't any hay, besides, and if there was, it would be soggy."

  The headlights of the car bored into the swamp, deep into the endless forest of trunks, thick and thin, and the wild broken palmetto and jagged banana. The water breathed and sighed and trickled again, for all its stagnant stench and motionlessness.

  "Jesus Christ, this is a wild place," Mona whispered, but in a way she loved it. She loved even the coolness of the air here, languid and soft, not moving with a breeze, but nevertheless stirred, perhaps by the water.

  Mary Jane let the heavy ice chest drop.

  "No, lookie, get over to one side, and when I get in the car and turn it around like to go back out, you look yonder where the light shines and you'll see Fontevrault!"

  The door slammed, the tires churned the gravel.

  The big car backed up to the right, and the beams slid over the spindly phantom trees, and lo and behold, lo and behold, she saw it--enormous, and listing horribly in the light, its attic gable windows flashing and winking out as the car made its circle.

  The night went dark, but what she had seen remained, a great black hulk against the sky, impossible. The house
was falling.

  She almost screamed, though why she wasn't certain. They couldn't be going to that house, not a house leaning like that, a crippled house. A house underwater was one thing, but a house like that? But even as the car drove away, with a small, healthy blast of white smoke, she saw that there were lights in this impossible ruin. She could see through the upstairs fanlight in the center of the porch, way back, deep inside, lights. And when the last sound of the car was gone, she thought for a moment that she heard something like the playing of a radio.

  The lantern was bright enough, but this was country dark, pitch black. There was nothing but the lantern and that dim, glowing coal of light inside the collapsing mansion.

  Dear God, Mary Jane doesn't realize this damned place has keeled over in her absence! We've got to get Granny out, assuming that Granny has not already been unceremoniously dumped into the drink! And what drink, what slime! The smell was the greenest smell she had ever smelled, oh, but when she looked up, the sky was that glowing pink that it can be in the Louisiana night, and the disappearing trees stuck their futile little branches out to connect with each other, and the moss became translucent, veils and veils of moss. The birds, listen to the birds crying. The very topmost branches were thin and covered over with webs, silvery webs, were they spiders or silkworms?

  "I do see the charm of this place," she said. "If only that house wasn't about to topple."

  Mama.

  I'm here, Morrigan.

  There was a sound on the road behind her. Christ, Mary Jane was running towards her, all alone in the dark. The least she could do was turn around and hold up the lantern. Her back ached now almost unbearably, and she wasn't even lifting anything or trying to reach anything, just holding up this awfully heavy lantern.

  And is this theory of evolution supposed to account for absolutely every species on the planet at this time? I mean, there is no secondary theory, perhaps, of spontaneous development?

  She shook herself awake all over. Besides, she didn't know the answer to that question. Truth was, evolution had never seemed logical to her. Science has reached a point where once again various kinds of beliefs, once condemned as metaphysical, are now entirely possible.

  Mary Jane came right out of the blackness, running like a little girl, clasping her high-heeled shoes together in the fingers of her right hand. When she got to Mona, she stopped, bent over double, and caught her breath and then looked at Mona.

  "Jesus Christ, Mona Mayfair," she said with anxious gasps, her pretty face gleaming with a thin polish of sweat, "I've got to get you to that house pronto."

  "Your panty hose are split to pieces."

  "Well, I should hope so," said Mary Jane. "I hate them." She picked up the ice chest and started running down the pier. "Come on, Mona, hurry it up. You're going to die on me right here."

  "Will you stop that? The baby can hear you!"

  There was a loud noise, a splash. Mary Jane had heaved the ice chest into the boat. So that meant there was a boat. Mona tried to hurry across the creaky, splintery boards, but each step was excruciating for her. Then, quite suddenly, she felt the real thing, had to be. A pain like a whip wrapping around her back and her waist, or what was left of her waist. She stopped, biting down hard not to shout.

  Mary Jane was running back to the boat already with her second load.

  "I want to help," said Mona, but she could barely get out the last word. She walked slowly to the edge of the pier, thinking she was glad she had on her flat slippers, though she couldn't really remember thinking to put them on, and then she saw the wide shallow pirogue as Mary Jane put in the last of the sacks, and all the tumbling pillows and blankets.

  "Now gimme that lantern and you stay right there till I back her up."

  "Mary Jane, I'm kind of, well, sort of, scared of the water? I mean I feel real clumsy, Mary Jane, I don't know if I should climb into the boat."

  The pain flashed again. Mama, I love you, I'm afraid.

  "Well, don't be afraid, shut up!" said Mona.

  "What did you say?" asked Mary Jane.

  Mary Jane jumped in the big metal pirogue, grabbed the long stick that was somehow anchored to the side, and then backed up the boat with some quick dipping pushes. The lantern stood at the very front, like there was a little bench or something especially for it. All the stuff was behind her.

  "Come on now, honey, just step into it, quick-like, yeah, that's right, both feet."

  "Oh God, we're going to drown."

  "Now, darlin', that's plain silly, this water isn't six feet deep here! We'll get filthy, but we won't drown."

  "I could easily drown in six feet of water," said Mona. "And the house, Mary Jane, look at the house."

  "What about it?"

  The world mercifully ceased to rock and roll. Mona was hurting Mary Jane's hand, probably. And now Mary Jane had to let go. Okay, easy! Mary Jane had both hands on the pole, and they were moving away from the pier.

  "But, Mary Jane, look, Mary Jane," said Mona.

  "Yeah, that's it, honey, we don't go but fifty feet, you just stand still, real still. This is a big, steady pirogue. Nothing's going to make it tip. You can kneel down if you want, or even sit down, but at this point I would not recommend the bother."

  "The house, Mary Jane, the house, it's tilted to one side."

  "Darlin', it's been like that for fifty years."

  "I knew you'd say that. But what if it sinks, Mary Jane! God, I can't stand the sight of it! It's horrible, something that big tilting like that, it's like ..."

  Another flash of pain, small and mean and deep, for all its quickness.

  "Well, stop looking at it!" Mary Jane said. "You will not believe this, but I myself, with a compass and a piece of glass, have actually measured the angle of the tilt, and it is less than five degrees. It's just all the columns make those vertical lines and look like they're about to fall over."

  She lifted the pole, and the flat-bottomed boat slipped forward fast on its own momentum. The dreamy night closed all around them, leafy and soft, vines trailing down from the boughs of a listing tree that looked as if it might fall too.

  Mary Jane dug the pole in again and shoved hard, sending the boat flying towards the immense shadow looming over them.

  "Oh my God, is that the front door?"

  "Well, it's off the hinges now, if that's what you mean, but that's where we're headed. Honey, I'm going to take you right up to the staircase inside. We're going to tie this boat right there like always."

  They had reached the porch. Mona put her hands over her mouth, wanting to cover her eyes, but knowing she'd fall if she did. She stared straight up at the wild vines tangled above them. Everywhere she looked she saw thorns. Must have been roses once, and maybe would be again. And there, look, blossoms glowing in the dark, that was wisteria. She loved wisteria.

  Why don't the big columns just fall, and had she ever seen columns so wide? God, she'd never, when looking at all those sketches, ever dreamed the house was on this scale, yes, it was, absolutely Greek Revival grandeur. But then she'd never actually known anyone who really lived here, at least not a person who could remember.

  The beading of the porch ceiling was rotted out, and a hideous dark hole gaped above that could just harbor a giant python, or what about a whole nest of roaches? Maybe the frogs ate the roaches. The frogs were singing and singing, a lovely sound, very strong and loud compared to the more gentle sound of garden cicadas.

  "Mary Jane, there are no roaches here, are there?"

  "Roaches! Darlin', there are moccasins out here, and cottonmouth snakes, and alligators now, lots of them. My cats eat the roaches."

  They slid through the front door, and suddenly the hallway opened up, enormous, filled with the fragrance of the wet soaked plaster and the glue from the peeling wallpaper, and the wood itself, perhaps, oh, there were too many smells of rot and the swamp, and living things, and the rippling water which cast its eerie light all over the walls and the ceiling, ripples
upon ripples of light, you could get drugged by it.

  Suddenly she pictured Ophelia floating away on her stream, with the flowers in her hair.

  But look. You could see through the big doors into a ruined parlor and, where the light danced on the wall there, the sodden remnant of a drapery, so dark now from the water it had drunk up that the color was no longer visible. Paper hung down in loose garlands from the ceiling.

  The little boat struck the stairs with a bump. Mona reached out and grabbed the railing, sure it would wobble and fall, but it didn't. And a good thing, too, because another pain came round her middle and bit deep into her back. She had to hold her breath.

  "Mary Jane, we've got to hurry."

  "You're telling me. Mona Mayfair, I'm so scared right now."

  "Don't be. Be brave. Morrigan needs you."

  "Morrigan!"

  The light of the lantern shivered and moved up to the high second-floor ceiling. The wallpaper was covered with little bouquets, faded now so that only the white sketch of the bouquet remained, glowing in the dark. Great holes gaped in the plaster, but she could not see anything through them.

  "The walls are brick, don't you worry about a thing, every single wall, inside, out, brick, just like First Street." Mary Jane was tying up the boat. Apparently they were beached on an actual step. They were steady now. Mona clung to the railing, as fearful of getting out as of staying in the little boat.

  "Go on upstairs, I'll bring the junk. Go up and straight back and say hello to Granny. Don't worry about your shoes, I got plenty of dry shoes. I'll bring everything."

  Cautiously, moaning a little, she reached over, took hold of the rail with both hands, and stepped up out of the boat, hoisting herself awkwardly until she found herself standing securely on the tread, with dry stairway ahead of her.

  If it hadn't been tilting, it would have felt perfectly secure, she thought. And quite suddenly she stood there, one hand on the railing, one on the soft, spongy plaster to her left, and looking up, she felt the house around her, felt its rot, its strength, its obdurate refusal to fall down into the devouring water.

  It was a massive and sturdy thing, giving in only slowly, perhaps stopped at this pitch forever. But when she thought of the muck, she didn't know why they weren't both sucked right down now, like bad guys on the run in motion-picture quicksand.